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Gunner Stockton has made two weeks look easy. Arkansas should make him work

Georgia has spent two weeks making football look considerably easier than it is likely to feel from here. The Bulldogs have beaten Tennessee State and Western Kentucky by a combined 133-23, Gunner Stockton has completed 28 of 32 passes, and the first-team offense has spent most of September operating without much sustained discomfort.

Saturday at Arkansas, the Razorbacks do not need to become a manufactured danger game to be useful. The Razorbacks are 1-1 after getting handled 43-10 at Utah. Georgia should be the better team in Fayetteville. The more interesting question is whether what looked so easy against the first two opponents still works when Georgia takes them on the road and into the SEC.

That starts with efficiency. Georgia scored touchdowns on its first five possessions against Tennessee State and first seven against Western Kentucky. That let Mike Bobo run almost the entire playbook and kept Stockton out of many obvious passing situations. Arkansas does not have to become an elite defense Saturday to make the Bulldogs work harder than that. A couple of early negative plays, a protection mistake or a penalty can create the kind of third downs Georgia has mostly avoided.

The same applies defensively. Georgia controlled Western Kentucky while the game was competitive, but seven penalties and two lost fumbles gave Kirby Smart plenty to dislike afterward. Those mistakes barely registered in a 50-point win. They become more consequential when the opponent has a crowd behind it, and Georgia no longer has five touchdowns of margin for error.

A personnel question is also developing on defense. Smart said Monday that safety Tyriq Green’s availability will have to be evaluated during the week, while defensive lineman Xzavier McLeod is no longer with the program. Neither development should transform expectations for Arkansas, but both make Saturday a little more useful for evaluating Georgia’s depth and rotations before the schedule becomes more demanding.

That schedule is coming quickly. Oklahoma Sooners visit Athens next week, followed by Vanderbilt and then Georgia’s first trip to Alabama since 2020. What Georgia carries into that stretch matters more than whether it can produce another cartoonish September score.

The Bulldogs already have evidence that Stockton can distribute the football, that the offense has multiple explosive options and that the defense can overwhelm inferior competition. What they lack is much evidence about how this particular team responds when a road environment creates inconvenience.

That is the value of Arkansas.

Georgia does not need to prove Saturday that it belongs among the best teams in the country. Two games into September is too early for that anyway. It needs to show that its execution, discipline and offensive efficiency don’t depend on Sanford Stadium, an overmatched opponent or a game that is essentially finished by halftime.

The first two weeks showed what Georgia can do when almost everything goes according to plan. Fayetteville should begin showing what happens when it doesn’t.

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